2011 Countdown: #30 Michael Shaw

Tag: Michael Shaw


1Aug 2011
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2011 Countdown: #30 Michael Shaw

Michael Shaw

Name: Michael Shaw
Height: 6’1″
Weight: 187 lbs.
High school: Trotwood-Madison High School in Trotwood, OH
Position: Running back
Class: Senior
Jersey number: #20
Last year: I ranked Shaw #30 and said he would gain 500 yards as the backup superback.  He had 75 carries for 402 yards and 9 touchdowns.  He also caught 10 passes for 75 yards.

Since I started the countdown prior to the 2009 season, Shaw has been #29, #30, and now #30 again.  He showed up at Michigan with all kinds of promise and has been one of those guys with “potential” every single year.  Unfortunately, that potential gets consistently bottled up by injuries.  Shaw has suffered bumps and bruises to just about every extremity, which have limited him to only 802 yards in three seasons.  With only 159 career carries, though, he’s averaging 5.0 yards per carry and scoring a touchdown every 14 carries.  Those are both pretty good rates . . . if he could only stay on the field.

Now Shaw enters his senior season as a seeming also-ran at the tailback position.  He didn’t do himself any favors by welcoming the coaches with a broken hand suffered in the first couple spring practices, but he did show some toughness by playing with a cast.  Shaw performed well in the spring game, breaking off runs of 25, 9, and 5 yards in his only three carries, but that probably won’t be enough to earn him a starting nod in the  fall.  The new coaching staff seems to prefer bigger backs, with the slight ones (Shaw, Vincent Smith) getting pushed downward on the depth chart.  I’m ranking Shaw higher than some of the other backs, though, because he’s got home run speed and runs the ball hard.  He found some balance and tackle-breaking ability in 2010 that he didn’t have before, and I think the I-formation offense will actually suit him better than the spread.  Shaw does well when he’s able to run straight ahead.  Vision and cuts are not his strong suit, but run an iso or a power up the middle and he could be long gone if his blockers do their jobs.

Prediction: Backup running back; 75 carries, 400 yards

15Jun 2011
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Poll Results: Michigan’s Fastest Player?

Denard Robinson blazes out of the blocks with former Michigan
offensive line coach Greg Frey watching from the background.

Denard Robinson: 87%
Troy Woolfolk: 6%
Josh Furman: 3%
Michael Shaw: 1%
Darryl Stonum: 0%

In a predictable landslide victory, Denard Robinson wins the race.  I wasn’t fully convinced that Robinson was the fastest dude on the team until the Notre Dame game last year.  His acceleration on that 87-yard touchdown run was incredible.

The only player that I thought might give him a run for his money was Troy Woolfolk, an indoor track runner himself.  Woolfolk’s nickname when he was playing free safety back in 2009 was “The Eraser” for the way he made up for everyone else’s mistakes.  I have yet to see him truly get burned in a footrace, so hopefully he can return from his ankle injury without lingering effects.

Furman and Shaw are both speedsters in their own right.  Furman reportedly ran a 4.37 forty yard dash in high school, and Shaw was a potential qualifier for the Junior Olympics in high school if he had decided to stick with track.

Stonum is a little too boozed up to run straight right now, so I guess that’s why he didn’t get any votes.

6Jun 2011
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Poll Results: Starting running back in 2011?

Stephen Hopkins tries to break a tackle against Bowling Green State

Recently I asked the question: Who will be Michigan’s starting running back in 2011?

The results:

29% – Stephen Hopkins
28% – Michael Cox
18% – Michael Shaw
10% – Thomas Rawls
6% – Fitzgerald Toussaint
4% – Justice Hayes
2% – Vincent Smith

Some of this voting seems a bit dubious.  First of all, if you’re a frequent reader, you know that I’m a fan of Michael Cox’s running ability.  You’ve heard reasons why he didn’t play much the past couple seasons (couldn’t learn the plays, fumbled in practice, etc.).  But you’ve also seen me make a case for why his in-game production (8.9 yards a carry, frequent big plays) warrants a longer look.  Cox supposedly had a class conflict with some afternoon practices this spring, which caused him to miss some practice time.  That has reportedly hurt him in the eyes of the coaches, which doesn’t make any damn sense at all.  I guess student-athletes who get punished for missing classes (they have to push a 45-pound weight plate up and down the field 15 times) ought to . . . miss classes and become athlete-students if they want to get on the field.

I can see why Hopkins would be the leading vote-getter because, after all, he was able to attend every single one of the spring practices, and that made the coaches happy.  Yet he averaged 4.1 yards a carry in 2010 (the lowest average on the team) and I didn’t see a single impressive run in spring practices or in the spring game.  Of course, all the Youtube clips and highlights don’t encapsulate everything a kid accomplishes over 15 practices, but one would think that a starting running back would have at least a couple highlight-worthy runs.

Shaw is another guy who seems to have been knocked down a peg or two because he had a broken hand and wore a cast for most of the spring.  He’s perpetually injured but when he plays, he looks good.

The other vote-getter I take issue with is Justice Hayes.  With all the options available, 4% of voters chose Hayes.  I don’t see how a 182 lb. incoming freshman is going to unseat a bunch of bigger, faster, and (in my opinion) better backs.  But especially when one considers that he received double the amount of votes as last year’s starter Vincent Smith, something’s wrong here.  I guess a bunch of Justice’s family members must have been visiting this website over the past week.

Overall, I don’t see how one can justify playing Hopkins over two guys who put up good numbers last year (Cox averaged 9.3 yards a pop; Shaw averaged 5.4 and had 9 touchdowns), but it’s a new coaching staff, a new offensive system, and I guess anything can happen.

10May 2011
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2011 Spring Game Statistics

I haven’t seen these posted anywhere and struggled to find them through a Google search, so here are the statistics from Michigan’s spring game on April 16, as tallied by The Wolverine:

PASSING
Denard Robinson: 5/14, 71 yards
Devin Gardner: 5/10, 99 yards, 1 TD, 2 INT
Steve Wilson: 0/2
Jack Kennedy: 1/2, 10 yards

RUSHING
Michael Cox: 4 carries, 82 yards, 1 TD
Denard Robinson: 6 carries, 48 yards
Michael Shaw: 3 carries, 39 yards
Stephen Hopkins: 6 carries, 17 yards
Fitzgerald Toussaint: 7 carries, 14 yards
Jihad Rasheed: 3 carries, 10 yards
O’Neil Swanson: 3 carries, 5 yards
Steve Wilson: 1 carry, 1 yard
Vincent Smith: 1 carry, 0 yards
Jack Kennedy: 1 carry, -3 yards
Devin Gardner: 4 carries, -9 yards

RECEIVING
Jordan Barpal: 1 catch, 50 yards
Je’ron Stokes: 2 catches, 34 yards, 1 TD
Vincent Smith: 1 catch, 33 yards
Kelvin Grady: 1 catch, 10 yards
O’Neil Swanson: 1 catch, 10 yards
Kevin Koger: 1 catch, 7 yards

SACKS
Jake Ryan: 2
Carvin Johnson: 1
Craig Roh: 1

INTERCEPTIONS
Carvin Johnson: 2
Marell Evans: 1
Jake Ryan: 1 (returned for a TD)

FIELD GOALS
Seth Broekhuizen: 0/1 (missed from 30 yards)
Brendan Gibbons: 0/1 (missed from 48 yards)

PUNTING
Will Hagerup: 2 punts, 79 yards

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